Right-to-work checks will extend beyond conventional employees from 1 October 2026, bringing workers under worker’s contracts, individual subcontractors and some platform-based arrangements into the UK’s illegal-working civil penalty regime. The change has particular implications for construction because the Home Office has used a construction contracting chain as one of its examples of where liability may extend beyond the business with the direct contractual relationship to the worker. That does not mean every client or main contractor automatically becomes responsible for every person on site: the contractual structure and how it operates in practice will determine where responsibility can sit.
Busy Commercial Street in east London beside active construction works. Photograph: London Construction Magazine.
What Changes on 1 October 2026?
Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extends the illegal-working provisions in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 beyond traditional contracts of employment. The change is being brought into force on 1 October 2026 under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026.
From that date, the Right to Work Scheme can apply where an individual is engaged under a worker’s contract, where an individual subcontractor is engaged within the defined contractual arrangements, and where an online matching service provides individual service providers to clients or customers.
This is wider than the previous civil penalty regime, which was principally built around employees working under contracts of employment. London Construction Magazine has previously examined the practical effect of digital right-to-work verification on London construction sites; the October change broadens the question from how a worker proves status to which working arrangements fall within the statutory checking regime.
| Working arrangement | Position from 1 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Employee under a contract of employment | Existing right-to-work duties continue. |
| Worker under a worker’s contract | Brought within the civil penalty regime for relevant employment commencing from 1 October. |
| Individual subcontractor | Can fall within the expanded Right to Work Scheme where the statutory definition and contractual arrangement apply. |
| Subcontracting chain | Extended civil penalty liability may apply further up the chain in specified circumstances. |
| Substitute worker | Where substitution is permitted, controls must ensure the substitute has been checked before carrying out the work. |
Why Construction Supply Chains Need Particular Attention
The Home Office right-to-work guidance for the October 2026 regime includes a construction example in which a property developer is contractually responsible for delivering new homes to a third party and engages other businesses through a chain of contracts to provide workers for elements such as foundations and bricklaying. In that example, the Home Office says the arrangements fall within the extended-liability provisions and the developer may be treated as the employer of individuals personally carrying out work through the relevant contractual chain. The developer would need to meet the prescribed requirements if it wanted to establish a statutory excuse against a civil penalty.
There is an important limit. The Home Office says extended liability does not apply to every business that simply purchases work or services. Its guidance distinguishes between a party that is itself contracted to deliver work or services onwards to a third party and an end-user purchasing a service for its own operations. The same distinction matters for agency labour. In a Home Office example where a manufacturer obtains temporary workers from an employment business purely for its own factory operations, responsibility remains with the employment business as the workers’ employer. The October rules therefore should not be reduced to a simplistic assumption that whoever controls the site gate automatically inherits every right-to-work obligation.
What Contractors May Need in Their Subcontracts
The accompanying 2026 regulations on prescribed requirements and codes of practice set out additional controls for contractual chains. Where extended liability applies, a party seeking a statutory excuse must have the required arrangements in place before the work starts. The prescribed framework includes written contractual requirements for the employer or service provider to carry out right-to-work checks, controls on further subcontracting, audit rights, enforcement provisions where illegal working is identified, and requirements to cooperate with a Home Office investigation.
For construction commercial teams, that means immigration compliance can become part of subcontract drafting and supplier assurance rather than being left solely to a site induction or an agency onboarding process. This sits alongside other labour-chain risks already affecting the sector. LCM previously examined how PAYE liability can move through construction labour supply arrangements where umbrella companies and recruitment agencies are involved.
Substitution and Site Identity Checks Become More Important
Construction also commonly uses labour arrangements where substitution rights appear in contracts. Under the new framework, where substitution is permitted, the substitute cannot simply arrive and work under the original individual’s approval. The prescribed arrangements require the substitute’s right to work to be checked before the work is carried out. The Home Office's September draft guidance also requires proportionate systems to establish that the individual actually performing the work is the same person whose right to work was checked. Examples include workplace passes, biometric or attendance-management systems, facial recognition through an appropriately registered digital verification provider, and checks against qualifications or licences.
For construction sites, this creates a useful distinction between the legal right-to-work check and physical identity assurance at the gate. A site card, induction record or competence credential can help confirm who has arrived, but it does not replace the prescribed right-to-work check carried out by the responsible employer. The Home Office draft guidance recommends identity re-verification at least once during a 24-hour period or shift where these extended-liability identity controls apply. Existing access-control systems may therefore become part of the evidence used to demonstrate that the worker on site is the individual whose status was checked.
Who Still Carries the Direct Responsibility?
The direct employer remains responsible for carrying out the prescribed right-to-work check. The extended-liability rules do not automatically transfer that duty to every other company higher in a contractual chain, and they do not automatically make one contractor liable because another employer failed to complete a check. Extended liability becomes particularly relevant where the Home Office cannot clearly identify the direct employer, where contractual chains contain several intermediaries, where records are incomplete, or where substitution arrangements make it unclear who actually carried out the work. In those cases, the Home Office can examine the chain and the controls operating within it.
Evidence may include contracts, audit records, assurances that prescribed checks were completed, compliance reviews and records showing how concerns were investigated. The Home Office also makes clear that contractual clauses alone are not enough: businesses should be able to show that the controls operated in practice.
Penalties Can Reach £60,000 Per Illegal Worker
An employer that is found to have engaged an illegal worker without establishing the required statutory excuse can face a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker. More serious cases where an employer knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, that someone is working illegally can lead to criminal prosecution, an unlimited fine and up to five years' imprisonment. The expanded civil penalty regime applies to worker’s contracts and individual subcontractor arrangements where the relevant employment begins on or after 1 October 2026. For extended liability through contractual chains, the new prescribed requirements apply to relevant contractual arrangements entered into on or after that date.
Construction businesses should therefore distinguish between existing engagements, new individual engagements after 1 October and new subcontracting arrangements that may bring the extended-liability provisions into play. LCM has previously tracked the wider increase in illegal-working enforcement affecting the construction sector. Before 1 October, contractors, developers and labour suppliers using non-standard workforce arrangements should review who contracts with each worker, whether substitution is permitted, how further subcontracting is controlled and what audit evidence is retained. The Home Office employer guide was updated on 11 September and is currently published as draft guidance for the regime taking effect on 1 October, so businesses should check the final version when the new rules commence.
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Expert Verification & Authorship: Mihai Chelmus Founder & Editor, London Construction Magazine | Construction Testing & Investigation Specialist |